


The Best Laid Plans

by Windstorms



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-23 00:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20883446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windstorms/pseuds/Windstorms
Summary: Roy and Ed have an agreement to help each other search for the remaining homunculi. Ed has his own plans. Can Roy help him before he does something stupid?





	The Best Laid Plans

**Author's Note:**

> In celebration of FMA day, I'm posting a story that's a bit of an AU about what might have happened if Ed never went through the Gate at the end of the series and the movie didn't happen.

When the door to the office banged open late in the afternoon Roy glanced up, sincerely grateful for the reprieve. He nodded slightly and put down his pen without risking a look at Hawkeye. “Fullmetal,” he said in greeting.

“General,” the teen returned as he strode into the room and walked towards the desk, stopping a few feet before it. “Lieutenant Hawkeye,” he smiled at Riza.

Roy simply watched as the two blondes greeted each other cordially. They stopped short of physical contact, but the affectionate meaning was there. It was still odd to Roy to see Ed walking into his office without the seven-foot-tall suit of armor that had accompanied him wherever he went for most of the time he had known the Elrics. He was so very grateful Alphonse was no longer trapped in the armor, but it was always something of a surprise to see the Fullmetal Alchemist without the shadow of his little brother hovering protectively just behind him. 

“Edward,” Riza’s eyes strayed to the metal arm he was clutching uselessly at his side. “Is your arm alright?”

Roy sat up a little straighter to observe for himself. He hadn’t noticed the awkward position Ed held his arm at until Riza pointed it out. 

“Ah, yeah, I’m fine,” Ed answered with a casual air. “Just had a little run-in. You know, the usual,” he turned to the general. “So, uh, I was gonna stop at home first but Havoc met me at the train and said I had to come here,” he trailed off, tilting his head a bit questioningly at Roy, who only shook his head minutely at him. 

“You need to have someone look at that arm,” Riza said with concern.

“I’m on my way to see Winry right after I give General Mustang my report,” Ed was studying Roy intently, and he was returning the stare with an unreadable expression. Hawkeye would notice the obvious signals going back and forth between the two alchemists, how could she not? 

Once the formalities were out of the way, an uncomfortable silence settled over the office. Riza looked from one alchemist to the other, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow. Roy made a show of shuffling some of the papers on his desk from one pile to another. Ed fidgeted and looked like he was about to burst from the sheer effort it was taking him not to speak. 

As usual, it was the impatient teen that finally broke the silence. “So, here’s my report,” Ed mumbled, dropping the papers onto an empty area of the desktop without ceremony. “That mission was complete bullshit. If you ever send me out to that dump again, busted automail or not, I’ll transmute them a-“

“Lieutenant, you may go,” Roy barked abruptly to interrupt whatever else Ed had been about to say.

“Of course, sir.” She was probably startled at the dismissal but recovered quickly enough to give the general a brief salute. “Edward. Please give Alphonse my best,” she nodded slightly at him, her eyes again resting on his broken automail arm. Then she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her slightly harder than usual. Roy was certain he would be hearing about that later.

Ed chuckled and flopped gracelessly into the chair in front of the desk. “She’s tense. You behind on your paperwork again?” he inquired with a grin.

“No more than usual,” Roy replied. 

“Which means I probably interrupted you about to get shot,” Ed snorted.

“Quite possibly,” he agreed, allowing the younger alchemist a quick smile.

Ed launched into the particulars of his report then but Roy was barely listening. He’d already heard the details from General Arkon, and as usual Ed was leaving a lot of specifics out of his version. A routine visit to an outpost on the outskirts of Xenotime had ended with a few of Arkon’s subordinate’s beaten, and two buildings alchemically destroyed, but those parts were conveniently left out of Fullmetal’s account. Roy had already diplomatically smoothed things over with Arkon before Ed had even set foot off the return train.

General Arkon was an insufferable ass so Roy found he wasn’t overly upset at the way Ed handled the mission. He wondered if Ed’s version of events would get around to explaining the broken automail, but the stubborn blond only kept talking in circles as Roy grunted periodically to show he was listening, which he wasn’t really.

“And ah- I might have accidentally hit one or two of them, but they were completely asking for it,” Ed finished breathlessly. “Can I go now?” He was already starting to stand.

“No,” Roy said blandly, and the teenager muttered and sat back down.

Silence enveloped them again as Roy continued pretending he actually gave a damn about his paperwork for several minutes. He was content to let Fullmetal wait for a while; after all, if he didn’t finish signing the stack of papers by the time Riza came back he would have hell to pay. Ed sighed loudly with each page he turned. Ed would just have to wait. A little patience wouldn’t kill him. Roy sneered inwardly as he contemplated telling the teen that just to observe his reaction to the expression ‘little’. 

When the deep sighs were ineffective, Ed began tapping his foot. His automail foot. He let each tap fall a little harder than necessary so Roy could fully appreciate the metallic clang on the tile flooring through the ridiculous boots the blond still habitually wore.

He continued to disregard the boy’s exaggerated mannerisms until he’d made a noticeable dent in the pile of papers stacked before him. When he finally set down his pen and looked up again, golden eyes locked on his lone dark one.

_Always a power struggle_, Roy mused, getting a little irritated. He didn’t have the time or energy for this. He could easily show the younger alchemist that he still held the upper hand between them.

“What happened to your arm?” he challenged.

Ed narrowed his eyes. “Nothing,” he said, so lowly the general had to strain to hear it.

“Miss Rockbell will surely be insulted if you are saying her automail quit working for no reason,” Roy continued.

Edward Elric actually blushed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. _That is a first_, Roy thought wryly to himself. Roy bemusedly wondered if his reaction was from the insinuation of future head trauma or the mention of the girl. It was probably both, but Roy guessed that Ed wasn’t ready to admit it even to himself.

Ed wet his lips and cleared his throat. “Can we get to why I’m still here?” he said, trying to take control of the situation in typical Ed fashion.

“Certainly Fullmetal,” he replied flatly. “You are here because it is your _duty_ to come when I call.” He leaned back in his chair and waited for the colorful explosion of words and flailing limbs or the violent transmutation that was sure to follow.

Ed’s already flushed face turned a dangerous shade of scarlet and his left hand clenched into a tight fist, but to his credit, he held his tongue. Roy was almost awed at his restraint. He was maturing after all. Gone were the days when Ed would work himself into a blind rage over the simplest slight, but it was still easy to get a rise out of him. Even when he wasn’t screaming or swearing, his emotions were evident on his face. Roy always enjoyed provoking a good tantrum; the outbursts were far more entertaining than dealing with the guilt the teenager still carried. But he was glad to see traces of what the young man would be someday beginning to emerge.

Duly impressed and satisfied he had won this round of insolence versus authority, Roy relented. He’d put this off as long as he could. He reached into his bottom desk drawer and withdrew a thin file folder and slid it across the desk towards Ed.

The blond snatched the folder off the desk, still eyeing the general disdainfully. Roy waited as he opened the folder and quickly scanned the contents. “What does this have to do with me exactly?” Ed asked once he got to the end of the report.

“It’s not every day an entire squad of eight soldiers goes missing,” Roy said, carefully weighing each word.

Ed remained unimpressed. “True, but don’t you have people that can look into that?” he inquired in a bewildered tone.

“I do, and they are,” he agreed. “So far they haven’t found anything. I thought you might be interested in having a look yourself considering the location the soldiers were last seen in.” He watched Ed’s face closely. He looked a bit bored, and more than a little irritated. Realization had not set in. Yet.

“Which was where?” A hint of impatience crept into the teen’s voice.

The older alchemist hesitated briefly. Knowledge like this was potentially dangerous. No, it was something beyond dangerous. It was possibly the break Ed had been waiting over a year for. It was possibly the break Roy had been dreading for over a year. There was a time when he could look Ed in the eye and lie effortlessly to his face. They were past those times now, out of necessity, but he was finding it very difficult to relinquish control now that he was confronted with this new information. “One of the known entrances to the city underneath Central,” he said finally. He was vaguely surprised he had kept his tone calm.

Ed’s eyes widened as the full implication of Roy’s words hit him then. He swallowed hard and looked back down and read the report a second time. Roy saw a wide range of emotions flash across the boy’s face all at once then. The general knew it mirrored the feelings that had twisted in him the night he realized he would kill the Fuhrer to avenge his best friend

“This is… you think…could it…?” Ed mumbled awkwardly. He started to rise out of his seat, opened his mouth and stammered a few more times, and sat back down hard. 

Roy nodded solemnly. He already halfway regretted showing the report to him. But there was more, and since he had come this far he had to tell Ed the rest. “There have been reports trickling in of a strange-looking man in the area,” he said, forcing himself to maintain a state of composure he did not feel.

“Let me guess. He fits Gluttony’s description,” Ed said then, his voice coming out more of a throaty growl than an actual word. Roy noticed the color was draining from his face.

“We don’t know anything Fullmetal. It could be something completely unrelated.”

“But people disappearing, leaving no trace – that could definitely be Gluttony!” Ed stood and began to pace back and forth in front of the general’s desk, rifling through the contents of the folder as he walked.

“How soon can you leave?”

“I’d need a few days to get my arm looked at.”

“Excellent. That will give me time to pull some men off other assignments and give you some support.”

“I don’t need any backup. I can do it myself. I’d rather work alone,” Ed insisted.

“And we both know how well that worked out for you the last time you faced them alone,” Roy said pointedly. “How long will it take you to travel to Risembool and have your repairs done?” Roy began sifting through the papers littered across his desk and completely missed the dark look that crossed Ed’s face.

After a long moment, Ed replied, “A week.”

That sounded about right. A couple days to travel by train to and from Risembool. He knew from experience it’d take anywhere from three to five days for the Rockbell girl to complete a new arm. Roy nodded in agreement and jotted a few notes down on the bottom of a requisition order that was still awaiting his signature. He cursed softly when he realized what he’d done. Roy reached into his uniform jacket, pulled out a single glove and slipped it on. He folded the paper once before setting it into the ashtray on his desk. Then the Flame Alchemist rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and set the offending paper alight with a soft snap. The paper rapidly disintegrated and burned itself out. 

When Roy looked up again, Ed was regarding him with an expression that plainly said the man had finally lost his mind. Roy gave a little shrug. Maybe Hawkeye wouldn’t notice that one was missing.

Ed returned to going over the documents in hand, mumbling a little to himself from time to time. Roy watched him absently, lost in his own thoughts about the situation he had just unleashed. Maybe he should have kept the information to himself.

Or maybe they could do this the sane way this time. Maybe Ed would listen to him, really listen to him for once in his life and everything would be fine. He wished Al were involved. The younger Elric could keep Ed rational like no one else could, but Roy understood Ed’s reasons for keeping Al out of it. Roy would go with Fullmetal himself this time. He had wanted to before, but he was dealing with Pride. It was suddenly hard for him to resist reaching up and touching the eye patch that covered the ruined part of his face. There would be no grand sacrificial gestures of life and limb or eyes lost. No, this time they would do it the right way.

“We can’t rule out the possibility Wrath is with him,” Roy said.

“We’ve been over this before. About a thousand times,” Ed grumbled.

“Humor me,” the general said patiently.

“There’s no way they’d work together. Wrath killed Lust.”

Ed said it with such conviction; it was like he was spouting off names of regular people instead of homunculi. As if they actually felt some semblance of human emotions towards each other. An image flashed before him of the Fuhrer, hands tightening around the neck of a ten year old boy on his birthday. This time he did reach up to gently finger the eye patch. He had fervently hoped the two Sins had somehow killed each other and that was why things had been so quiet for the past year. “And we still don’t know what became of Dante,” Roy said thoughtfully.

Ed abruptly stopped pacing around the office and looked up from the file. “I could do this now. I could get my arm fixed by someone here and get on this quicker. The sooner I get down there and investigate, the better. Delaying this may cost those men their lives. And my lead on Gluttony.”

Roy looked up and only just barely managed to keep the alarm he felt from showing on his face. The younger alchemist running off on his own again was the last thing he wanted, but Ed was already striding across the room to collect his coat.

_Don’t do anything stupid Ed. Trust me this time. _

Roy had to stop him from leaving and starting off alone on some sort of reckless plan that could get him killed. The only thing he could think to do now to slow the Fullmetal Alchemist down was to use the only thing that mattered to him as a weapon. His little brother. 

“Have you ever thought about including Al in these plans?” Roy ventured suddenly. Ed’s mouth worked but no words came out. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with the mistake he might have just made possibly pointing the boy in the direction of a homunculus, Roy would have mocked the gesture. “You may want to talk to him about it sometime, he might surprise you,” he continued.

Ed glared openly at him then and the general was suddenly reminded of the many, many times he had seen that look before. He’d seen it on the face of a petulant twelve-year-old child that had joined the military without really knowing what he was getting himself into. He’d seen it on the face of a hot-headed fifteen-year-old teenager as Roy had to chase him through the woods of Risembool in an effort to save him. And now, the anger was once again clearly etched across the face of a seventeen-year-old that was still caught somewhere between being a boy and a man. 

Ed had finally found his voice. “You leave him out of this. We have an agreement. I stay on your leash and you give me access to whatever leads you come across.”

“Which is exactly what I just did,” he waved his hand at the folder still clutched in Ed’s hand. “All I’m saying is he’d want to be involved in this. Now that he’s not a hollow suit of armor, he could even take the State Alchemist exam. I would think the added funds alone would improve your living situation a great deal.”

For one fleeting moment, Roy was all too tempted to tell Ed that Alphonse was growing suspicious. A few days earlier, the younger Elric had called the general and asked him if he would be willing to sponsor him to take the exam. He wanted to join his brother on his missions, as he had when his soul was housed in a suit of armor. Roy believed Al was also interested in pursuing his own goals and he suspected he knew what those were as well. He had not upheld his part of the promise to restore his older brother’s body of course, and Alphonse Elric was not the type of person that would give up so easily on something that important. 

Neither brother was.

Ed leapt from his chair then and slammed his left hand flat on the desk, leaning across it threateningly. Roy noted the automail wrist clinked firmly on the front of his desk, but Ed paid no attention to it. This was the kind of reaction the general had been expecting several moments earlier when he had brought up his mechanic. “Don’t you even think about it! You’ve suckered me into staying in the military but you are not getting your hooks into my brother.”

_Still protecting Al. Always shielding Alphonse. _

Roy laced his hands behind his head and fixed the boy (y_es, he still was a boy no matter what Ed thought),_ with a cool gaze. “I thought you were here to hunt the remaining homunculi, Fullmetal. You get what you want, I get what I want. Equivalent exchange.”

The general didn’t even try to suppress his smirk at the purposeful mention of the teenager’s mantra. He felt himself relax a bit. This was simply what they did. The volatile banter, the malicious give and take, was more comfortable than hostile to both of them after all this time. They regarded each other silently for a few moments. Ed contorted his face, snarled, and tried to stare the older man down. Roy flatly returned his glower with a look of indifference that only angered Ed more.

“You really are a bastard,” Ed hissed. “I’ll do your assignment, like I always do. I’ll wait for your backup. And Al-“

The older man spread his hands wide in an affable gesture. “Won’t hear a thing from me,” Roy finished for him.

Apparently satisfied with that, Ed abruptly turned and stalked to the door. He spared the general one final glare over his shoulder before he grabbed the doorknob with his flesh hand with enough force that Roy half expected him to twist it off.

As the door slammed shut after the teen hard enough to cause the windows behind his desk to rattle, Roy sighed. He raised his hand towards the telephone on his desk and picked up the receiver to call the only Elric with any common sense. He wouldn’t tell Al about the homunculi, he would keep his word on that. But he had a right to know that his brother was hurt.

He paused then; hand hovering in midair above the numbers on the dial. Ed was going to do whatever he wanted just as he always had and he wasn’t going to let another ruined automail arm stop him. If Roy betrayed the small amount of trust he had finally gained now, Ed would only resort back to keeping all of his plans secret and Roy would not be able to protect the boy at all. He heaved another sigh as he replaced the receiver on the phone and dropped his hand back to the desk.

He wondered just how, after all these years, he had ended up keeper for all the secrets the Elric brothers were hiding from each other.

*

Outside his superior’s office, Ed gritted his teeth and had to steady himself against the wall with his left hand for a moment. His shoulder was in bad shape but he was fairly certain the general hadn’t noticed. Flinging insults had always been the best way to distract Roy. Ed was a master at concealing his pain after all. The last thing he needed was Mustang asking him a lot of concerned questions, or worse yet, calling Al.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself off the wall and started down the hallway, slowly moving away from the general’s office. He reached up to hold his automail with his left hand and his thoughts suddenly turned to his mechanic.

He hadn’t seen Winry in some time. Now that he had an actual viable lead on one of the homunculi, he wasn’t going to Risembool to see her now either. General Mustang and his crew didn’t need to know that. Ed had gotten fairly adept at transmuting his automail back to its normal form. The alchemic repairs he did were not as good however, and after having to do it several times over the last few months the steel that made up the arm was now thinner and lighter than it should be. It probably would not hold up this way for much longer.

He didn’t have time to go to Winry for a proper repair. He had too many other things to do. He shifted his hand up to rub the flesh part of his shoulder and nodded absently at two people in uniform that had stopped to give him a salute.

He turned to watch the soldiers as they walked the rest of the long corridor until they turned off down another hallway and then out of sight.

He clapped his hands together, albeit awkwardly since his right arm would not move as it should. He breathed deeply and savored the energy flowing through him for a moment. Then he kneeled on the floor, pressing his automail hand against it. The busted metal shuddered and began to flow back to its original shape. The transmutation started its smoothing effect at his fingertips and spread up his arm until it reached the line where metal met skin at his shoulder. It was a strange sensation but the automail didn’t feel it the way a normal limb would.

He stood and flexed his arm cautiously; testing the joints. First his fingers, then his wrist, and finally his elbow and shoulder. He furrowed his brow as he evaluated the prosthetic. The metal felt even lighter than it had before. His mind wandered as he made his way through the winding corridors of the Central Headquarters building. Maybe he shouldn’t go looking for a homunculus with an arm that was weakened to begin with. That’s what Al would say if he knew about any of this. Ed could almost hear him saying it. He pushed the concern and the voice of his brother out of his mind. _It’s not recklessness_, he told himself. He was older and more experienced now. He could fight one of them without putting himself in danger. 

In all likelihood, this was another wild goose chase like every other lead he had checked out over the last year anyway. If it wasn’t a false lead, well, he wasn’t thinking that far ahead right now. He didn’t have any remains of the person Gluttony had been before. He couldn’t begin to imagine why someone would have ever wanted to bring Gluttony back in the first place. But there had to be another way to kill the homunculus. He would find it. 

This was his burden, and his alone. He would find Gluttony, if not this time, then soon. And he would find Wrath someday too. He would kill them both to ensure his brother’s safety. He would finish this. He would make sure no homunculi remained to persuade other alchemists down the path to creating new homunculi the way the malevolent group had done for centuries. He would not allow Alphonse, or Mustang, or more soldiers to go down with him.

Only he deserved to pay that price.

All that was left now was to go home and bandage his shoulder and lie to Al. Deception had never been his strong point. But now, it felt like all he did was lie. He lied to Winry by blatantly avoiding her. He lied to his brother by omission. He lied to his superior officer to his face. 

He would lie to them all until this was done. The only question he had was what would be left of him when it was over.

He shook his head, pushing the thoughts out of his mind. That didn’t matter anymore. He was ready to accept whatever came.

He had seven days head start before Mustang would call his younger brother or the Rockbells and realize he had gone on alone. Seven days to search for the missing squad. Seven days to finally find one of the homunculi and set things right. 


End file.
